Mother Baby

Yesterday was my first of three Mother Baby clinicals. For 3 consecutive Mondays, we spend a 12 hour shift taking care of both Mom's and Baby's needs.

Yesterday, I was only responsible for my Mom (next week I'll care for a baby, then the third week for both Mom and Baby). At 8am I took her vital signs, checked her belly, rated her pain, changed her sheets, and charted my assessment. This was her third baby, so she was pretty self-sufficient. I "Quick-Chart"ed on her (re-assess and document her: pain and where the pain is/how it feels, location in the room, what she is doing, who she is with, if her call bell is in reach, bed low position, IV site is working, ask if she needs anything to drink) every 2 hours and whenever I entered her room. Later in the afternoon, I checked her belly again.

Since my patient was doing just fine, I was able to help with the admission on a newborn. The Labor and Delivery floor was packed with 5 C-Sections, one of them being twins! We got a section baby and a few of us got to help our instructor assess the baby for admission. Since it was a section baby, her lungs were a little "juicy" because she wasn't squeezed coming out (like normal delivery babies are). She had a couple short periods of respiratory distress where she was grunting and flaring her nose, but she was okay. We listened to her heart and lungs, took her temperature, blood glucose, head circumference and length. We also had to rate her on the Dubowitz scale, which assesses her gestational age and neurological function: we look for her reaction to light and sound, movement and muscle tone, reflexes, and behavior. We could see how she sat in Mom's tummy; she was most comfortable on her back with the legs both to one side, right leg crossed over the left. She was such a lady. We had to re-take her vital signs every 30 minutes. A few of us got to bathe her, and I was able to measure her head and length, take her foot prints, give her a vitamin K shot in her leg, take a blood glucose, and put on her first little diaper.

All babies get a natural increase of Vitamin K on their 8th day of life. Vitamin K helps your blood to clot. Do you know what else happened on the 8th day of life in Biblical times? That's when the little boys would be circumcised. God made sure they would have a surge in the clotting factor for that day! I love learning little things like that.

All in all it was a fun clinical experience. It's neat to get the babies in the nursery fresh from a C-section, then have Mom rolled up to the window when she is out of the OR and see her expression as she looks at her new baby for the first time! I am looking forward to these next two Mondays!